Race to 5G: February 2019 Update

In our first monthly update, we explain how we'll track the Race to 5G over the next two years. AT&T and Verizon have a small lead right now, but the competition will really heat up later this year.

The next generation of wireless is coming. 5G, or fifth-generation technology, will have potentially greater speeds and lower latency than the current 4G system, enabling applications like self-driving cars, augmented reality, and new home internet options. Right now, wireless carriers are hustling to be the first to 5G, spitting out a nonstop stream of press releases and quasi-announcements.

So we're making it a little fun. Every month, we'll update our Race to 5G table based on how we judge each carrier's move toward speed, coverage, and device availability. Each of those three categories is a third of the score, and we've set the criteria so that one will probably win around 2021.

If you're curious about why 5G matters, think about how much 3G and 4G transformed society. 3G basically enabled widespread mobile web use. 4G introduced a host of applications that changed America: Instagram, Snapchat, and Uber, for instance. Whether it's for the better or for the worse, 5G is going to make a big difference.

Our Race to 5G only covers US wireless carriers, and is focused on consumer rollouts. Of course, there's a lot of other 5G activity going on around the world, and other countries may outpace the US. China, for instance, is going to do big, coordinated 5G launches in late 2019 and early 2020 that may cause it to leap ahead. While we won't score other countries in our Race to 5G updates, we'll cover some international news.

5G: Just Getting Started

We're seeing a lot of false starts on the race to 5G right now, but things will speed up toward the end of this year.

We're launching this at the beginning of Mobile World Congress, the year's biggest mobile phone trade show. We don't expect to hear a lot of carrier announcements at the show.

Of the four US wireless carriers, both AT&T and Verizon have launched very limited 5G service so far, both with big asterisks. Verizon has 5G home internet service in portions of four cities, but it's very limited, not mobile, doesn't use the agreed-upon global standard, and likely won't expand for six months. Samsung recently announced that its Galaxy S10 5G phone will be available for all four US carriers, starting with Verizon, in the second quarter. We look forward to seeing it launch and we will give Verizon points when it does.

AT&T is running user trials of a Netgear Nighthawk 5G mobile hotspot in very limited areas of 12 cities, but the devices aren't available to the general public.

Using our math, AT&T and Verizon each get three points for one device each, but no points yet for coverage or speed.

Sprint and T-Mobile haven't launched 5G yet, but a recent Qualcomm announcement gets them much closer to doing so. Sprint currently plans to light up 5G service around midyear in up to nine cities. The carrier says: "We're on track to launch mobile 5G in the coming months covering the downtown city centers of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. We're making good progress, having completed earlier this month with Qualcomm Technologies and Nokia, our first 5G data call on our commercial network in San Diego."

T-Mobile is mostly focused right now on selling the idea that if it's allowed to merge with Sprint, it will be able to deliver a better 5G network. But even without the merger, it plans to launch midyear with a combination of slow, but broad-coverage 600MHz, and fast, but limited-coverage 28GHz.

Light Reading reports that T-Mobile has installed some form of 5G equipment in 30 cities, and promises nationwide 5G by 2020. But the company's launch is waiting for T-Mobile-compatible 5G smartphones, which aren't coming until later this year. For smartphones to support the company's "nationwide" 600MHz network, they'll need the Qualcomm X55 modem, which was only just announced.

The various carriers have promised 5G deployments in cities around the country. This map shows some of the announced locations.

Our 5G Methodology

Coverage: A carrier gets one point for every five million people covered, up to a maximum of 34 points for 170 million people. Coverage is measured by ZIP code, and population is measured by the ZIP code's population in the 2010 US Census. A ZIP is considered covered if we see a 5G speed test run there using the Ookla Speedtest application. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.)

Devices: A carrier gets three points for every device launched, up to a maximum of 33 points for 11 devices.

Speed: Carriers get points for various maximum, average, and minimum speeds seen across their whole networks, to a maximum of 33 points.

Follow Race to 5G every month as we track the carriers' progress into the new 5G world.

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About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.

Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed to the Frommer's series of travel guides and Web sites for more than a decade. Other than his home town of New York, his favorite ... See Full Bio